Bleeding Hearts
by LuxAmbrose
Summary: Beacon Hills doesn't have good luck with teachers. Derek Hale doesn't have good luck with women. But there are exceptions to every rule and Leah Gaede is determined to defy the expectations of one rule. Is it too much to hope that, even in the face of the latest threat in Beacon Hills, she'll defy the expectations of the second rule too? AU Post Season 3!
1. Prologue: A Friendly PSA

**A/N: So…this story started out as an exercise in entertaining myself during breaks in studying for the Bar exam. But, the more I wrote, the more it took on a life of its own and well . . . now here we are. To be completely honest, I'm writing on a whim right now, I know the basic details about Leah and I know the endgame, but that's about it!**

**The story is canon with seasons 1, 2, and 3. But it skips season 4, mainly because I can't keep up with it and trying to re-write the whole season takes away from the fun of creating my own storyline. SO this story picks up at the start of Scott and Co's senior year, under the assumption that for the main characters all's well that ends well in season 4. If you don't like that, then don't read it!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own TW, if I did I wouldn't be studying for the Bar.**

**Bleeding Hearts**

Prologue: A Friendly PSA

All Leah Gaede wanted was an iced non-fat caramel latte. What she got was a borderline existential experience, leaving her to beg the question whether waking up fifteen minutes early to buy coffee was a fruitful use of her time, when she ended up wasting it by standing in line behind a suburbanite chatting loudly into her cell phone about the trouble she and her lawyer husband were having getting pregnant. What was the point of this, Leah wondered somewhat dryly. The line shuffled along and she thought with longing for the cool interior of her car and a stretch of open road. But the only stretch of road Leah's car would see this morning was the drive to the high school. And in the face of all-day in-services and teacher team-building exercises, she resigned herself to the fact that she needed coffee.

So, she shifted her weight in her converse sneakers and brushed a non-existent piece of lint off her skinny jeans. Leah thought in-services were supposed to consist of learning how to plan lessons, discuss taming unruly students, and for all of the new teachers to ask questions about cell phone policies and the like. So when the itinerary mentioned to wear comfortable sneakers, Leah's worst fears were realized. Beacon Hills High School's in-services also included team-bonding exercises and, she shuddered at the thought, trust falls. Sighing, she ran her fingers through her tousled caramel hair and let the waves spill down her back, partially obscuring the dark gray V-neck t-shirt she wore.

In front of her the bleach-blonde suburban queen shifted her conversation gears to a dinner party and Leah rolled her eyes. It took a lot of willpower to not tap the woman on the shoulder and kindly tell her to shut up. But, being ever the sole of discretion, Leah entertained herself by counting the number of gray hairs that escaped the woman's highlight job. Until, at last, it was her turn.

Five excruciating minutes later, Leah walked out of the local coffee shop and into the brilliant August sun. Rays reached between the buildings and scattered across the pavement, filtering green through the leaves of the trees that lined the sidewalk. Leah couldn't exactly say that Beacon Hills was the most beautiful city she'd lived in, but it certainly had its charms; she especially enjoyed the plaza square a few miles away from the school. She peeled the paper off the top of her straw and took a sip of her coffee.

Caffeine flooded her system as the cold liquid washed down her throat. A happy sigh of relief escaped Leah's lips and she shook her hair out as she pushed her sunglasses back on, the vintage wayfarers shielding her stormy grey eyes. Shoving her hand in her back pocket, Leah made her way down the block to where her car sat parallel parked beneath two large trees. Down the lane she could see the shining dark gray paint job on her BMW two-door M3, beams of sunlight shattering across the surface like thousands of diamonds.

The space in front of her was now empty and Leah began to cross it, shortening the distance to her driver's side door. Leah turned her hip toward the car so her key fob was close enough to activate the auto unlock. Pressing her hand on the inside of the door handle, she started to open when the rumble of a large engine pulled her back to her surroundings. Leah had just enough time to flatten herself against the side of her car as a black and gray SUV sailed past her. The rush of air whipped by her face, and the blood drained from her face as she realized just how close the driver had been to hitting her. The SUV stopped halfway up the spot in front of her and then, with enviable ease, backed into the space. Leah scowled, it had taken her three tries to do a decent parking job and this guy made it look like nothing.

Still, a horn honk or some warning would have been nice.

The door opened and she paused, ready to give the guy a piece of her mind. Leah watched as one booted foot settled on the ground and then a tall man ducked out of the car. Jeans covered the man's legs, disappearing beneath a navy blue shirt that fit just loose enough over his torso before pulling slightly across his broad shoulders. "Hey," she started to say to him, prepared to shout him down. But he seemed not to notice her as he turned his back to her, prepared to walk down the street. "HEY!" She half-shouted.

The man stopped and pivoted to face her. Leah's mouth opened and closed. He was, for lack of better words, ludicrously handsome. For a long moment, silence stretched between them and he shrugged his shoulders as if to say to Leah 'what the hell do you want?' She didn't want to admit it, but even the scowl that painted across his angular features was attractive.

But handsome or not, that fact alone, reasoned Leah, didn't give him the right to ignore pedestrians. "Maybe you should be more careful next time, you almost hit me," she said and felt the words seemingly deflate under his gaze, still covered by his sunglasses. One of his heavy brows arched and he looked from her to her car and back again. He raised his aviators and Leah's grip on her coffee tightened. Even from a distance, the man's clear green eyes stared straight at her, unblinking.

A placating light came to them and he took a few more steps towards her. "I'm sorry, I guess I didn't see you." Good Lord, thought Leah disparagingly, he even had a nice voice, smooth and low.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she shifted uncomfortably as his eyes flickered to her car and then back again. "Well, I just thought you should get the PSA in case the next time isn't a near miss."

The stranger's lips almost imperceptibly twitched and he gave her a single nod. "I'll keep that in mind," he then started to walk away and turned his head over his shoulder. "Nice car by the way," he said and kept walking down the street.

Leah's mouth hung open in slight shock as she watched him walk on, completely astounded by his complete nonchalance. "Thanks?" She asked, but it came out as more of a question than a declaration. Shaking her head, she muttered something under her breath about good-looking men overcompensating with big SUVs and she got into her car, destined for a long day of back-to-school in-service misery.

Already halfway up the block, Derek Hale's ears picked up on Leah's backhanded compliment, made under the mistaken belief that he couldn't hear her. Unbidden to him as he pushed his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose, his lips lifted into a tiny smile. Upon arriving in front of the door to the small coffee shop a few blocks from his loft, he pushed the door inward and stepped into the warm atmosphere. Derek faced a long day of trying to persuade Peter to do something that went against his every fiber of being: pay Braeden for the services she'd rendered four months ago in helping find Kate. It was a task Derek didn't particularly relish and something he'd never be able to accomplish without, at the very least, a cup of coffee.

**A/N: So there you have it. Again, because I don't know what's going to happen in the rest of Season 4, I'm just inserting my own little details to help move my plot along since each set of 12 episodes tend to stand alone. As Season 4 develops, I'll make the necessary changes if they don't screw up what I've written so far! Let me know your thoughts. **

**I'm going to work really hard to avoid some of the conventional clichés and I'm also going to poke a lot of fun at the first half of Season 3, what with Leah being a teacher and all. **

**Alsoooo, as far as I know (and that's not saying much) there is no confirmed age for Derek. I'm operating under the general assumption that he is around the age of 22-23, which makes him old enough for this plot to work but also young enough that it still fits with the canon. **

**Next chapter will really get into the actual story and we'll see some familiar characters! **

**-Brose**


	2. No Phones Allowed

**A/N: Hello all! So here's the first chapter! It's a little slow to start, but I swear that the action will pick up in the first few chapters. Just a little FYI – I like to jump between points of view to give an insight into as many characters as possible, with an aim at making the plot as well-rounded as possible. **

**Also if any of the characters seem OOC it's mainly because I'm still playing around with trying to get it right. But I am having fun with the inner monologues, putting my spin on what's really going inside someone like Scott's brain. **

**One final reminder for anyone who missed it in the prologue, which I edited after I posted it. This story remains canon with Seasons 1, 2, and 3 but SKIPS SEASON 4. I'm drawing some of my own inferences and making up some semi-plausible facts to carry some of Season 4 into this story, but overall I'm just leaving it alone. If something happens to one of the characters in 4 that is incongruous with this story, then the story will go on as an AU!**

**Also, thanks to everyone who favorited and followed! **

**Disclaimer – I don't own Teen Wolf, if I did I wouldn't be drowning in student debt.**

Chapter 1

No Phones Allowed

Scott McCall shut his AP World History book, pushing it across his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he blew out a drawn sigh and turned his attention to the remaining item of his summer homework: the first four chapters of _Candide_ for his English class. Kira promised him that the reading wouldn't take long. Glancing at the clock, he noted that it was nearing close to nine-thirty already. Grabbing his copy of _Candide_ he flipped the cover open.

His eyes barely skimmed the first few lines when a sharp buzzing startled him. The screen of his phone lit up and he could see Stiles' name across the top bar, below a picture of his best friend pretending to be stuck inside Scott's phone. Scott knew that if he were a smarter person he'd ignore Stiles' phone call because as a rule, whenever Stiles called past eight at night, the end result was never good. After all, if not for Stiles coming by his house in the middle of the night a year and a half ago, Scott wouldn't be a werewolf.

But Scott wasn't a smarter person and so he tapped the answer key and held the phone up to his ear. "What's up?" He asked, flipping over _Candide_ to examine the illustrations on the back.

"Dude, I'm my way to your house. Lydia called she's out in the middle of the woods and she wants us to meet her there." As a general rule, anything involving Lydia calling from a strange place also usually didn't end well. But Scott very well couldn't say no, though if he was being truly honest with himself, he wanted to. Just for once, Scott wanted to have a normal start to a semester. The past three had gone extraordinarily poorly for him: werewolf bite two springs ago; mass bird suicide and raging alpha pack the fall before; and a temporary break with sanity the just last semester. None of that chalked up to great success in Scott's book, no matter how many great things had come out of it.

"What's she doing in the woods?" Scott asked, already regretting the question.

"She doesn't know, she said she was leaving the house to run an errand for her mom and the next thing she's out in the preserve." Rising from his seat. Scott shrugged off his sweatpants and reached for the nearest pair of jeans on the floor. They had a slightly musty scent of clothing in need of a wash, but if he was going tramping through the woods, Scott didn't really care what his clothes looked or smelled like. Pulling them on one leg at a time, he tried to balance the phone between his shoulder and his ear.

"There's not a body is there?" He asked.

"She ah didn't say," said Stiles cagily. Scott nodded and buttoned his jeans before plopping down his bed, reaching for his boots that sat at the foot.

"Don't you think that's something she'd mention right away?"

On the other end of the line, Scott could practically hear Stiles begin to get short-tempered. "I don't know alright? All I know is Lydia called me and said to meet her on the trail that runs parallel to the lake. Look, I'll be at your house in like two seconds."

Scott hung up and finished tying his laces. As he started out the door to his bedroom, he grabbed his jacket and shrugged it on as he walked out the door. Jogging down the stairs, not a sound or a voice greeted him. Through the windows at the front door, Scott watched as Stiles' blue jeep stopped just in front of the sidewalk that ran up the lawn to Scott's house. Throwing the door open, Scott hurriedly locked the door behind him and jogged down to the jeep.

Inside, Stiles drummed his fingers along the top of the steering wheel. As Scott approached he ruffled his hair, nodding his head once in greeting. "Alright, so I've got a map here," he said and reached into the backseat. Scott watched, trying to hold back his amusement as Stiles struggled to open the huge map of the preserve. "Lydia said something about the trail that runs parallel to the lake, so I'm guessing it's this one that actually runs parallel, or she could have meant this one that sort of curves around the south of the lake," he began to rattle off, pointing to various points on the map, illuminated via his phone's flashlight function.

Arching an eyebrow, Scott let Stiles go on a little longer. At length Stiles finished his long-winded explanation and looked up at Scott expectantly, wanting to know what his 'Alpha decision' would be. "I mean personally I'd take this trail," he started to say.

"Stiles," said Scott firmly, recapturing his best friend's attention. "There's another way to find Lydia." His voice took on a tone to suggest that what came next would be the most obvious thing in the world. Lips drawing into a smirk, he tapped his nose. "I've got a pretty good lock on her scent by now."

Stiles gestured towards Scott's nose before coming back to land on the map, crinkling the paper. "Of course you do, why didn't I think of that," he muttered under his breath and attempted to fold the map. Scott threw his hands up to block the paper as it flew in his face under Stiles' futile attempts to correctly fold the map. "For the love of God, _who_ makes these things?"

Giving up on the offending paper, Stiles shoved it unceremoniously into the backseat of the jeep and started it up. Twenty minutes later they pulled into the main parking lot at the preserve. "There's Lydia's car," said Scott, pointing out the small sedan. Stiles killed the jeep's engine and jogged over to Lydia's empty car.

"Can you catch her scent?" Scott approached the point where the sidewalk ended and turned into dirt, leading out into the woods that comprised the preserve. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he looked around. A sense of foreboding swept over him. But no foreign scent reached him. Still, the wind began to pick up through the trees, Scott wished he'd had the foresight to call for more backup. The shifting wind carried on it a familiar scent.

Stiles pulled his phone out of his back pocket, making to dial Lydia. But Scott didn't need her on the phone, almost as soon as he picked up her distinctly flower scent as soon as they stepped foot on the lake trail.

"Come, let's go," he muttered and led the way down the trail. For a while they walked on in silence before Stiles couldn't hold himself together anymore.

"Did you get your homework finished?" He asked Scott.

"Almost all of it."

"Yeah, yeah me too," said Stiles unconvincingly. "Did you see we finally got a new science teacher to replace Lydia's mom?"

Scott nodded and paused long enough to re-trace Lydia's scent. "Yeah, Ms. Gaede. I thought her assignment was pretty tough."

Stiles rotated the barrel of his flashlight in circles, expelling his constant stream of nervous energy. "I don't trust her," he said firmly.

A smile touched Scott's lips and he turned to look at Stiles, disbelief painted across his tan features. "What? Already? We haven't even met her yet!"

Throwing up his hands in frustration, Stiles turned to walk backwards for a few paces before tripping over a tree root. Reaching out with a lighting-quick hand, Scott pulled him upright. "Thanks," said Stiles quickly before jumping back to the conversation at hand. "Look I don't want to point out the obvious here, but our school? It has shitty luck with teachers. First there was Harris, major douche bag. Second our only two music teachers? Human sacrifices. Oh and who were they sacrificed to? That's right, our English teacher!"

Scott didn't quite want to admit that Stiles had a point. "Plus, our history teacher is married to a nine hundred year-old fox spirit."

Clapping his hands together, Stiles nodded his head. "I'm just saying, we should approach with caution. You never know, this one could end up being like a witch or a vampire or something equally horrible."

"A vampire?" Scott deadpanned, becoming more and more amused by the second.

"Or something like that," grumbled Stiles as Scott started to laugh.

"Wouldn't it be pretty hard for a vampire to teach chemistry? _During the daytime_?"

Stiles flashed an unamused glare at Scott. He opened his mouth to speak again when Scott stopped abruptly and turned his chin up, sniffing the air. The floral scent was almost completely overpowered by intense fear and confusion. Those three smells seemed to form what Scott liked to call the 'Lydia trifecta,' the combination that Lydia exuded in the wake of a Banshee moment.

Stiles clapped him on the shoulder and urged them forward. Ahead, through a gap in the trees, Scott caught the first glimpse of Lydia's strawberry blonde hair. Wide, terrified eyes found Scott's as he and Stiles burst into a small clearing, split by the trail. Lydia stood with her arms crossed over chest, shivering. Scott unzipped his jacket and held it out to her. A grateful expression filtered across Lydia's face and she accepted the jacket, shrugging it on over her floral dress.

"What happened?" he asked, conveying as much concern as he could.

Wordlessly, Lydia shook her head. "I have no idea. One second I was going to the store to pick up some stuff for my mom and the next minute I'm here in the middle of the freaking woods. And these shoes? They were not designed for hiking." Scott glanced down at Lydia's wedge sandals, the bottom of the platforms were caked in mud.

Stiles stood a few feet away from them. "Lydia, did you draw these?" He enquired.

Scott followed the line of Stiles' gaze. They stood in the center of a perfect circle of seven flat stones. Luminescent paint emitted a soft glow from each stone. "No," Lydia's voice echoed into the surrounding woods. "I don't know what they are either."

Crouching between two stones, he could see that the symbols were painted using a smaller brush. Beyond that, he got nothing from them. Each symbol was different, a connection of lines and arcs in different manners that were completely indecipherable. Behind him, Stiles tried to pry more information out of Lydia but didn't get very far. It seemed that being out in the woods alone had done enough to provoke Lydia's irritable mood

A light flashed, searing across Scott's eyes. Raising an arm to shield his gaze, he straightened up to find a preserve ranger staring at them with an unamused expression. "What the hell are you kids doing here? Nobody is supposed to be on these trails after dark," he snapped at them. "Go on, get back to your cars."

Stiles, Lydia, and Scott shared a resigned look. "Yeah, sorry, we'll uhm, just go."

Scott turned to look over his shoulder once more at the ring of stones and frowned. "They must mean something," he muttered as they began to tramp down the trail back towards their cars. "And you didn't recognize the symbols?" He turned his question onto Lydia.

"I already told you, I've never seen them before," she replied through a sigh.

"You guys know I don't want to be the first one to say this, but maybe Derek knows what they mean? Maybe they've got some freaky wolfy meaning." The thought, however remote, gave Scott some comfort.

"Yeah, I'll text him tomorrow about it."

Lydia sighed again and started to trudge a little faster, determined to get to her car. Trailing after her, Scott and Stiles watched her angry posture. "I thought she was in better control of this stuff?" Scott asked under his breath.

"Yeah, so did I," said Stiles, just as low.

"Are you two coming? Or am I going to waste my last night before school starts waiting around for you?" Lydia's voice drifted back to them. Stiles sucked in deep breath and tried to give Scott a reassuring pat on the back before jogging to catch up with Lydia. Pausing, Scott turned around and looked over his shoulder. By now the clearing was long behind them, but the feeling of foreboding lingered on.

Scott wasn't the banshee of the group, but even he had a sick feeling that those symbols meant far more that met the eye.

X X X

Leah stepped back from her black board and placed her hands on her hips, a satisfied grin tugging at her lips. The board stretched out before her, empty save her name written in the dead center. A blank slate was a thing of beauty to Leah, providing her with an unparalleled opportunity to start anew. That's how she felt standing in her classroom, staring at her black board, waiting for her first students to trickle into the classroom. Leah accepted her first ever real teaching job with Beacon Hills in an attempt to wipe her slate clean. Then again, that wasn't entirely true. There were other things pulling her to Beacon Hills, but even she wasn't ready to admit those reasons to herself.

A sharp knock on her classroom door pulled her attention from the board. Leah's brain struggled to recall Coach Finstock's first name. He raised his hand in a sort of half-wave of greeting, his eyes shifting around somewhat nervously. In an attempt to make him more comfortable, Leah offered him a warm smile and she turned away from the board. "Good morning, Coach," she said cheerily. "What can I do for you?"

"Just dropping by to make sure you're settled into your classroom okay." Leah looked around the science room. Each seat already had a waiting syllabus and a detailed outline containing homework assignments. During in-services she'd been warned against giving her students too much responsibility too early, but Leah had never proscribed to the notion that one should treat teenagers like children. Soon enough her AP Chem students would be going off to college, and an early dose of responsibility would do them some good.

"Yeah, everything is great," she said, beaming at Coach Finstock. He was a nice, albeit twitchy sort of man who took an avid interest in warning the two new teachers about the dangers of teaching high school students. Well, he hadn't called them students so much as miscreants. "I'm just a little keyed up, ready to get the first class over with."

Finstock grinned at her and nodded, shoving his hands in the front pockets of his blue jeans. "I have those feelings every single day."

Her laugh was cut short by the first two of her students trickling into her classroom. They paused and looked at her uncertainly, each evaluating every detail that Leah had to present. She tried her best to appear unruffled by their appraising stares, because Leah knew they were judging every aspect of her appearance. Perhaps that why it took her so long to get dressed for the first day, because of the desire for her students to like her, to trust her. "Good morning," she said in what she liked to call her 'kind authority' voice. "Take a seat anywhere you'd like."

The students shuffled to seats at the second to last lab station in the room. "Well, it looks like you've got things covered. If you need anything," said Coach Finstock, his voice trailing off uncomfortably.

Leah suddenly got the impression that poor Coach Finstock needed to get out more. "I know where your office is," she supplied for him. Coach pointed a finger at her and nodded before shuffling out of the door. Down the hall his booming admonishment could be heard, directed at some poor student using foul language in the halls. Leah raised a hand to cover her amused smile as more students began to fill in. AP Chemistry consisted of subject matter Leah could do in her sleep, providing enough confidence to shake away her lingering doubts.

Teenagers, despite their adherence to changing trends, never really changed, and Leah drew immense comfort from that fact. Leah caught snippets of passing conversation between students as they passed. Mostly, they talked about each other, about the weekend's back-to-school party, and who hooked up with who and the like. None of it surprised Leah, but then again she'd seen and heard it all before.

"Dude, have you tried calling him again? I know he's all busy with Braeden practically knocking down his door and Peter being a giant douche and all, but strange witchy symbols cropping up in the woods takes precedence." Leah arched an eyebrow, but kept her gaze focused squarely on her copy of the syllabus on her desk. Repeatedly, she told herself she didn't want to know. But, against her better judgment and will, her eyes flickered up.

Two boys strode past her desk, deep in conversation. They moved almost as one unit, shoving their bags on the last remaining lab station in unison and digging for their chemistry books at the same time. One of the boys, smaller and paler than his friend looked up at the board and back down again. His friend was the definition of California dreaming: tan, built, and with a mop of pitch black hair styled away from his face. Just looking at him, Leah suspected he'd unknowingly broken his fair share of hearts.

The final bell rang, distracting Leah from the brief snippet of conversation she'd heard. Looking up, she found her full classroom staring at her expectantly. Without missing a beat, Leah fell into a somewhat familiar rhythm and gestured to the chalkboard.

"Good morning class, and welcome back. My name is Leah Gaede and this is AP Chemistry. For future reference please call me Leah or Ms. Gaede. Before we dive into the syllabus, let me tell you a little bit about myself." Leah walked around to the front of her desk and leaned against it, crossing one long leg over the other. "I recently graduated from USC with dual degrees in chemistry and secondary education." Half-true, thought Leah. "I moved to Beacon Hills about two weeks ago, so if anyone can point me in the direction of decent Chinese take-out, I won't say no." True and true. "One interesting thing about me is that I am a classically trained pianist."

She began to walk down the aisle between the work stations. "Welcome to Advanced Placement Chemistry. My sole purpose in your lives is to help you survive and hopefully pass the AP exam in the spring. You will see two documents before you. The first is the syllabus, the second is this semester's homework list. Yes, that's every assignment laid out before you including the pertinent test dates. I will not be writing the homework on the board at the end of every lesson, I expect you to be responsible for your own assignments. If you lose the homework sheet either ask a friend or come to me and I will give you a new copy."

Leah droned on further, discussing the basics of the AP exam, covering the school's policies, and her expectations. Just as she was about to round out her lecture, she looked up to see one of the boys she'd noticed earlier texting on his phone. Leah looked down at her picture roster, zeroing in on her target. "Mr. Stilinski!" She barked.

The student in question snapped to attention so violently that he nearly fell off his stool. Leah's eyebrow arched in response and she watched as he got his act together. "Thank you for reminding me that phones are strictly prohibited in this classroom! Not only will your use greatly detract from your ability to learn this material, but we also use several chemicals during labs that will ruin a cell phone should they come into contact with it."

Leah noted with a large measure of satisfaction as more than one of her new students attempted to slyly slide their phones off the desk to shove them in their pockets. That included Stiles Stilinski, who pocketed his phone and rubbed the back of his neck, looking around as if to check that anyone else had seen him. Red patches stained his cheeks and Leah fought the urge to smile. "Alright, I think that just about covers the back-to-school basics. Does anyone have any questions?"

When nobody raised their hands, Leah turned to the board and took in a deep breath. "Well then, let's begin with the basic building blocks of all chemistry: the elements and the periodic table."

Twenty minutes later, the bell rang and Leah watched as her students filed out of the room, one by one. She leaned up against her desk, smiling as they passed on by when one student in particular approached her. "Uhm, Ms. Gaede?" He had a soft-spoken voice for a boy of his size. Leah surveyed his tan skin and pitch black hair, set over kind eyes.

"Yes, Mr.," she started to return to her desk but he smiled at her.

"It's Danny Mahealani," he substituted for her.

Leah snapped her fingers in recognition and grinned. "Forgive me, it'll take at least another five times for me to recall that, I'm terrible with names. What can I do for you Mr. Mahealani?"

He shifted his weight. "You mentioned at the start of class that you're a trained pianist?"

Nodding, Leah settled back against her desk, tilting her head in curiosity. "I've studied nearly all my life," she replied and crossed one ankle over the other, the back of her plum colored flat resting lightly on the ground.

Danny wrapped his hands around his backpack straps. "Well it's just with budget cuts, the school shut down the music program. Some of us want to continue to meet once or twice a week to practice and still do the fall recital. But we need a teacher to sponsor us."

Leah followed his line of logic and he raised his eyebrows, begging the silent question. "I would love to oversee you guys play, but I don't know anything about conducting," she admitted with a sad smile.

But to her surprise, Danny perked up and his smile broadened. "That's okay, Holly Smith's dad is a conductor at the university and he's said he'll help, but we have to have teacher supervision and sponsorship."

Nodding, Leah crossed her arms over her chest and drummed her fingers along her upper arm. "Who in school administration do I speak to?" She enquired.

Danny's face lit up and he looped one arm out of his backpack, swinging it to his front side. He unzipped one of the smaller pockets and plunged his hand within the depths. Fishing out a folded piece of paper, he held it out to Leah and she accepted it, unfolding the computer sheet to scan the contents. "You don't have to do much, just show up to the meetings and sign off on a music selection. And maybe you could play piano? Our music teachers always played but they're both," his voice trailed off uncomfortably.

"They both passed away," she said in her best sympathetic voice.

"Yeah," he said looking down at the floor. "Well, I would really appreciate it if you'd look over the requirements and think about it."

Leah folded the sheet up again and set it on top of her planner, offering him a grin. "I absolutely will, I'll let you know by the end of the week."

Danny beamed at her before departing, turning into the busy and bustling hallways. Leah smoothed a hand over the loose chignon she'd thrown together that morning. The paper stared out ominously to her, a beckoning call to immerse herself back into the real world with real people again, something Leah wasn't entirely sure she wanted to do. But how bad could sitting in on a student music group possibly be? It had to be better than the route her mind took her down, to the snippet of conversation she'd heard at the start of class.

She'd tried to ignore it all class long, but the tiny, nagging part of Leah's mind desperately wanted to know the answer to Stiles Stilinski's question: what were these mysterious symbols in the woods?

X X X

Sometimes Derek Hale really, really wished that he didn't own a cell phone. In all honesty he'd gotten along just fine without one for several years. No phone meant no 'get down here right away' calls from Sheriff Stilinski. No phone meant no incessant check-up calls from Scott. But most of all, especially right now no phone meant no flow of irritating text messages in the middle of the day from Stiles. All. Day. Long.

Even now his phone buzzed in his back pocket and Derek had half a mind to hurl the offending piece of technology at a tree so he could be get five minutes of peace and quiet. Was that too much to ask? Derek certainly didn't think so.

And yet, between the sheer force of Stiles' text messages and Scott's phone calls, Derek was treading familiar paths in the preserve. The late afternoon sun came in through the trees, casting a blanket of heat over his shoulders as he picked his way along the path that Stiles told him to take, the one the boy geniuses apparently took the night before. Derek really didn't even want to know what Scott and Stiles were doing out in the preserve in the middle of the night. Asking those types of questions never really seemed to go all that well for him. So he fired them both a one liner that simply read _I'll look into it_, and left it at that.

Surely to God, even Stiles and Scott could take that hint.

Derek inhaled and caught the traces of the fading summer air. The first signs of fall echoed all around him, he could hear it in the shifting wildlife, see it in the already-changing trees, and the air contained a sort of heady scent that came with the changing temperatures. Derek always enjoyed the fall, the rain and the warm colors that decorated the trees reminded him of his childhood home.

At first, Derek wondered why he bothered to come here at all. In fact, he almost hadn't and wouldn't have until Stiles told him that the finder of these mysterious symbols was Lydia Martin. After their shared experiences over the past year, Derek Hale knew better than to ignore Lydia when she got a feeling or ended up some place unusual. Shoving his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, Derek shook his head. If he was being truly honest, at least to himself, he knew he would have come to the woods no matter what. Because for better or for worse, Beacon Hills attracted all sorts of supernatural nightmares, and the Hales defended Beacon Hills.

Unfortunately, in Beacon Hills, symbols were never just symbols. Nothing was ever as it seemed and anything, graffiti included, could present a potential threat to all of them.

So there he was, ambling along one of the beaten running trails, still a few hundred feet away from where Stiles said the clearing would be. Derek entertained himself by taking in the full scenery and enjoying his moments of solitude. It only came as a further perk that the longer he took, the more he irritated Scott and Stiles. Serving up those two a dose of their own medicine gave him far more pleasure than it should.

A breeze filtered through the trees, sending cool air across his face. After spending the past few days going round after round with Peter, the break and chance to get outside was welcome. Their past few conversations hadn't gone any better than the first and always seemed to end up the same way. Derek tried to reason, Peter was a sarcastic ass, Derek got angry, Peter accused him of favoring Braeden for 'special' reasons, claws came out, and Derek ended up cleaning blood off his floor. Again.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Derek wondered just exactly how long he could continue to play the intermediary between Peter and Braeden. He wasn't interested in making either of them mad. Peter tended to be vengeful when he got mad, whereas Braeden would likely haul off and shoot him if the profit were good enough. But Peter had equal control of the remnants of the recently recovered Hale fortune which left Derek in a strained position. He couldn't pay off Braeden without Peter, and he was showing zero interest in budging.

Nothing was in it for him, and on a certain level Derek understood that. The deal had been for Braeden to find Kate before the Calaveras did. Events didn't exactly pan out in that order and as a result, Peter refused to uphold his end of the bargain, which left Derek in a decidedly uncomfortable position, leaving him to question the overall soundness of his recent life decisions. Still, he didn't exactly relish the thought at being on the receiving end of Braeden's shotgun, so now he was left with another option: figure out how Peter cold benefit.

Derek's train of thought came to a grinding halt as he came onto the narrow clearing in the trees, split by the trail. Sure enough, a circle of seven flat stones looped the area. In the daylight, Derek could see what they had likely missed the night before. Each stone was exactly, perfectly the same in size, roundness, and overall appearance. A frown tugged at his neutral expression and he crouched down to get a better look. The paint picked up the sun, almost pearl-like in appearance, standing out against the inky blackness of the rock beneath.

Yet, something stranger appealed to Derek's senses as he examined the brush strokes. The symbol could have been a crescent moon, but for the positioning of the shape, the points turning downward, almost entirely engulfed by an angry spray of paint over the top. Moreover, the brush strokes exuded an emotion that not even Lydia's lingering scent could mask. Anger seeped from the flat surface of the stone. The same emotion and urgency pronounced itself in the short, intense brush strokes that comprised the symbol's makeup.

Derek examined the seven different paintings and was left with nothing but a mystery. These weren't familiar to him. At times he swore he could pick out a planetary symbol, but then they were lost in the mass confusion of messy strokes and paint smears over the top. Just as he reached into his pocket for his phone, the sound of footfall alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone.

Spinning around slowly, he found a young woman jogging toward him, running along the trail. Her caramel and chocolate colored ponytail swung behind her head in a pendulum-like manner, the flyaways secured by a wide dark purple headband. Leggings covered her long legs, but did nothing to hide the muscle tone that showed itself with each of her strides. Derek's eyes wandered to her face and struggled with its familiarity, he could have sworn he'd seen this woman before.

She drew closer to him, moving fast along the hard-packed dirt. Upon seeing him, standing in the middle of the confusing scene, she pulled up short. Jogging to a halt, she bent slightly at the waist to catch her breath, bracing her hands on her upper thighs. Her ponytail slipped over her shoulder, catching on the light sheen of sweat that coated her body. Turning her head up to the side, Derek found himself staring at eyes that reminded him strongly of hurricanes, stormy grey and turning with curiosity. Recognition lit them as she straightened, pulling her headphones out of her ears as she did.

Placing her hands on her hips, the strange woman offered him a breathless smile. "I thought I recognized you as I was running up," she said through her still-labored breathing. Sweat beaded across her forehead and she was red in the face. Yet, for all of that, even Derek couldn't fail to notice that she was eye-catching.

Derek arched an eyebrow. Feeling a little embarrassed that she clearly knew who he was but not the other way around, he deflected by crossing his arms over his chest in a decidedly unfriendly way. "I don't think we've met," he said somewhat shortly.

But the stranger remained completely undeterred. "You almost hit me with your car last week outside Beacon Hills Coffee and Tea? I may have yelled at you to keep a better eye out, any of that ring a bell?" She twisted her fingers together and apart. Derek watched the repetitive motion with mild interest while he put two and two together.

"Of course," he said lamely, unable to completely rebound.

"I'm Leah," she said, holding out a hand to him. Derek hesitated, he didn't know anything about this woman and despite her narrow frame, he'd seen less of a person do more. But her hurricane eyes seemed to implore him. Ultimately, Derek decided against being prohibitively rude and he grasped her hand.

"Derek," he said, thankful that Leah didn't disclose her last name either. She grinned at him and then walked around him into the center of the circle.

"Well this isn't something you see every day," she said, placing her hands on her narrow hips. Her ponytail was longer than Derek had originally thought, it fell to her midback in heavy curls. The breeze picked up again and sent a wave of her shampoo into his face.

"Yeah," he said noncommittally, his brain turning circles to place her face. Why hadn't he seen Leah around town until now? "So, what do you do?" The question left his lips before Derek could stop himself, much to his chagrin.

Leah cast him a surprised look over her shoulder. "I teach science at Beacon Hills High School. Today was actually my first day," she said. Derek's hackles immediately rose, an involuntary response to a period in his life he'd rather forget. The flippancy of her tone suggested that either Leah had no idea how dangerous that school was for teachers or she was too stupid to appreciate the risk. Not that Derek felt compelled to tell her, he was far safer staying out of the situation. When it became painfully apparent that he wasn't going to offer any further contribution to the conversation, she swung her arms back and clapped her hands together awkwardly. "Did you do these? They're interesting."

Without so much as opening his mouth, Derek shook his head and shoved his hands further into his pockets. Friendly strangers always bothered him, maybe it was because most people had a natural aversion to him and when someone didn't, well, it usually ended poorly. Leah nodded and looped the cord of her headphones around the back of her neck. As she pushed her ponytail back to fall between her shoulder blades, Derek could see the jump of her pulse point. Though it was probably from her exercise, that didn't stop the less-rational part of his mind from forming wild conclusions. "Have you seen anything like this before?'

Leah arched an eyebrow, her stormy eyes fixing him with an appraising stare. "No," she said slowly and looked back over her shoulder. Unfortunately, Derek couldn't tell if her jumping pulse resulted from a lie or from her run. Sweeping his eyes over the scene once more he shrugged and started to walk away, desperate to get away from her. "Bye!" Leah called after him, sarcasm dripping from her tone of voice.

Derek paused and cast her one last glance over his shoulder. Standing in the middle of the clearing, she looked small but oddly not insubstantial. Her lips tugged into a wry smirk and she crossed her arms over her small chest. Now that he stood further away from her, Derek was able to easily tell himself that Leah was unremarkable in every aspect. Returning to his course that would take him back to his car, he waited until he heard her feet shuffling. Taking his first opportunity, he ducked behind a large pine.

Peering around the edge, he watched as Leah rubbed the back of her neck before walking over to one of the stones. Her lithe body moved fluidly as she dropped to her knees next to one of the stones. Long, appraising fingers brushed over the paint and she pulled her fingers back as though she'd been burned. From the profile view Derek had of Leah, he could see her brow furrow in confusion.

Hastily, she looked around the clearing before she undid the armband holding her phone in place. Pulling it out of the sleeve, Leah held the camera up and took a picture of the stone, then the next, and the next until she had pictures of all seven. Derek watched as she took a few more pictures of the entire scene, replaced her phone back in its sleeve, and push her headphones back into her ears. Leah took off at a jog in the opposite direction, leaving Derek with more questions than he had answers.

**A/N: The mystery begins! I hope all of this goes according to plan, I've outlined the first twenty chapters or so, leaving room for tweaking and improvements. **

**Also – strange question of the day: normal high schools have six or seven periods? I went to a high school with a block system of four classes a day. That, and it's been a minute since I was in high school. **

**Well, anyway leave some love, tell me how I can improve, or what you think in general! **

**Next chapter features more investigation into the stones and more of Derek's suspicions about Leah.**

**Much love - Brose**


	3. The Dangers of Eavesdropping

**A/N: Don't expect updates this often! I'm actually a really inconsistent updater! But I have been writing during my study breaks, and as a result here's a new chapter! This will likely be the last update for a few weeks seeing as how the Bar exam is in a week, I'm getting married in less than three weeks (!) and I'll be on my honeymoon for two weeks after that! So unless the mood moves me or time permits, I think it will be sometime in late August before I can post again!**

**I'm not entirely happy with the first section of this chapter, but I loooved writing the coffee shop scene! Also, I went back and forth on how to do the big reveal but as I started writing this, I realized that this story is hard to write from Leah's point of view without the readers knowing who/what she is! **

**I'm really nervous about the reveal because in the TW fics I've perused, I've never seen anything like it. So, I hope you guys like it or are at least intrigued by it! **

**Disclaimer – I don't own TW, I only own Leah. **

Chapter 2:

The Dangers of Eavesdropping

"Dude, seriously, when was the last time you swept in here?" Stiles asked, drumming his fingers along the edges of Derek's table. Across the room, Peter smirked from his place on the spiral staircase. Derek's shoulders tensed at the question and he looked up at Stiles, shooting him a glare.

"Stiles, back to the point?" Scott prompted him.

Nodding, Stiles looked back at the table top. The pictures that Derek texted him were now in print version, sitting in a neat stack on the table. "So what order were they in again?" Derek reached for the pictures and began to spread them out in a circle. A stack of books spread across the werewolf's bed, open to various pages and marked up with yellow post-it notes.

"Any idea what they are?" Asked Scott.

Derek let out an exaggerated sigh, rubbing his face with one hand. "I've been looking at them all day and all I can get out of them are planetary symbols."

Nodding, Derek directed his index finger to the first picture. "Saturn, Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the moon, and the sun," he said, pointing each one out in turn. "But I don't know what configuration this is."

"Well what are the planetary symbols used for?" Asked Scott.

"You can find astrological symbols in just about every culture, Scott," said Peter, rising to his feet. He swaggered over to the table and Stiles watched him carefully, ever distrustful of the man. Derek rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a tired sigh.

"The truth is they could be used in all sorts of rituals, they could just be markers, or some dumb kids playing around with things they know nothing about," said Derek.

Stiles stopped drumming his fingers and picked up one of the pictures. In the light of day he could see the perfect roundness of the stones, the glittering black color, and the pearlescent paint. "What about the materials, anything special about those?"

Derek and Scott both shrugged. "The paint didn't have any unusual smell," said Scott. Derek nodded in agreement. "I hate to be the one to say it, but there's not a lot to go on here," he muttered.

"Did anything else weird happen while you were out there?" Asked Stiles.

Shrugging his shoulders, Derek rotated a picture to get a better look at it. Immediately, Stiles could tell that something was wrong, that there was something Derek wasn't telling them. He could see it in the tight lines on Derek's face and the way his fingers clenched the edge of the table. "Derek," said Scott in a warning tone.

"Yeah," he admitted at last. "When I was out looking around I saw your new chemistry teacher there."

It was like the bomb dropped on Stiles' head, exploding with a world of possibilities. "You-our-chem-what?" he babbled out semi-incoherently. Derek's fierce green gaze snapped to him and he nodded once.

"Ms. Gaede was there?" Scott enquired, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

"Is her first name Leah?" Asked Derek. Both Stiles and Scott nodded simultaneously. "Then it was her."

"What happened? Did you talk to her?" Stiles asked, setting the picture back down and spinning it on the table beneath his fingers. He couldn't help his fidgety, nervous energy.

Derek nodded and blew out a sigh. "She was on a run, we talked for a few seconds, she introduced herself, she asked if I made these symbols, and then I walked away to hide and see if she'd linger."

"And?" Scott prompted.

"And she stayed and took pictures of all the stones and the configuration," said Derek tiredly. His voice betrayed him though, laced through with distrust and concern, it was a common theme with Derek. Stiles was willing to bet that even now the only person in the world Derek trusted whole-heartedly was Scott and that because, although neither of them would admit it, Derek was a part of Scott's pack.

Peter returned to his favorite haunt on the spiral stairs and inspected his fingernails, looking entirely unconcerned by this turn of events. "So, she knows something," he said, speaking the words everyone was thinking but not saying.

"Well I don't think she was taking pictures for the hell of it," said Derek through gritted teeth. Stiles' mind began whirring in a thousand directions all at once, each ending at the same conclusion.

"Oh man, you don't think this is going to end up like the last time we had a supernatural teacher, do you?" He began to whine. Foreboding already hung in the air of Derek's loft like it was a permanent fixture, but now the atmosphere felt heavy with a sense of new anticipation, like they'd been down this road a hundred times before.

Derek shrugged. "I don't know. She's not one of us, I would have caught the scent."

Peter sighed and rest his elbows on his legs, completely at ease. "She's probably the one who drew the symbols, coming back to finish up whatever weird, witchy ritual she'd been doing the night before."

"Witchcraft? Is that really a thing?" Scott asked, once again betraying his limited knowledge of his own universe. Derek and Peter lifted their heads, shooting Scott a somewhat amused glance. In that moment the resemblance between them was so similar it actually freaked Stiles out a little.

"Witchcraft is sort of a branch of Druidism," explained Peter in a bored voice. "Practiced mostly by women." Stiles groaned and rubbed his face with his hands before beginning to pace. He couldn't hold still, he'd never been able to hold still. Through the windows of Derek's loft he could see the city skyline, thrown into sharp relief by the brilliant glow of the setting orange sun.

"Great, so we survive a Dead Pool only to get thrown into some twisted Harry Potter novel? I am so not on board with this."

"Yeah but we don't know that Ms. Gaede is anything," defended Scott. "She could have just as easily taken pictures because how often do you see this kind of stuff?" There went Scott, always looking for the best in people and always trying to see the situation in the best light. Stiles loved his best friend for his unerring goodness, but sometimes it really threw a wrench into the working order of things.

Derek sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, brooding over the pictures on the table. "That's what we don't know, that's what we need to find out."

Peter chuckled from the stairs and rose to his feet. "Well, as sweet as it is seeing you three getting the band back together again, I think I'll pass. Let me know what turns up." Derek's eyes flickered to Peter and his scowl deepened.

"Okay, so what's the plan?" Stiles asked, looking to Scott.

"We try to keep everything normal. _And _we assume that Ms. Gaede is innocent until she proves otherwise."

Nobody dared contradict Scott's statement, they'd been through too much in the past to question Scott's judgments now. Stiles stopped pacing and returned to look at the pictures. He knew nothing about art, but Stiles could at least tell that the brush strokes were forced, angry. Just looking at them unsettled him and he didn't even know what they were about. "In the meantime I'll see what I can find out about her."

An unamused laugh popped out of Stiles' lips before he could stop it. "You," he deadpanned. "You're going to dig up information on the new teacher?"

Derek exhaled sharply and turned the full force of his glare on Stiles. As much as he'd like to say that glare didn't still scare him a little, it did. "Why not?"

"Uh, do I need to remind you about the last time you got involved with one of our teachers? She ended up committing human sacrifices and tried to kill an entire pack of alphas, all while the two of you were taking a few tumbles in the sheets," said Stiles as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Peter snorted in poorly concealed laughter.

Straightening up to his full height, Derek stared down Stiles. "That's not gonna happen this time," he said.

"Scott?" Stiles turned to the alpha, looking to his best friend for guidance. Scott shifted his weight between the two of them, clearly torn about how to proceed.

"Derek, you find out what you can but don't get too close. Stiles, you and I are going to go talk to someone else who might know what these symbols are."

Stiles sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. "Of course we're going to Deaton."

X X X

"Okay, so to be clear! There's a fifty-fifty shot that you will have a quiz tomorrow morning concerning the basics of the periodic table. If you take thirty minutes to review these will be easy points, so please prepare accordingly!" Leah half-shouted over the din of her students. She crossed her arms over her chest and watched as her kids began to slam their books and folders shut, pack up their bags, and take out their phones. A comic smile toyed at her lips as she turned away from them and began to erase the series of notes she'd written on the blackboard over the course of class.

Using wide sweeping motions, Leah cleared away the components they'd been working on for the first four days of school. Reviewing material wasn't Leah's favorite thing to do, but judging from the vapid expressions on some of her student's faces, going back to the drawing board wasn't the worst idea in the world. The last of her students began to trickle out as she returned to her desk and began shutting way her lecture notes for AP Chemistry and turn to her notes for basic Chemistry I.

Out of the corner of her eye, Leah saw a familiar figure begin to exit the classroom. "Danny!" She called out to her student. The boy paused in the doorway and pivoted on his feet, coming back to stand at her desk. He curled his fingers around his backpack straps and hitched it higher up on his shoulders.

"What's up Ms. Gaede?" He enquired.

Leah reached for her paper academic planner and opened the laminated cover. Pulling a folded sheet of paper out of the back folder she held it out to Danny. "I spoke with your principal this morning before class and he thinks it's a wonderful idea to form a music club. I've agreed to oversee it, provided that Ms. Smith's father is still willing to conduct."

Danny's face split into a white smile, reaching up to his warm eyes. "Awesome," he said. "And you're good with Thursday afternoons to meet?"

"Shouldn't be a problem seeing as how I'm new in town and know absolutely nobody," she joked. To her relief, Danny chuckled and looked over her signature on the consent form. "We can discuss ideas for the pieces the group wants to play at the first meeting."

"Well some of us were planning on meeting tomorrow to talk about that, can you be here then?" Leah shook her head and beamed at him. She folded her planner shut, setting it atop another stack of papers kept within a manila folder. Shifting on her high heeled wedges, Leah brushed the sweep of her bangs from her eyes.

"I can definitely be there tomorrow, I'll even play a little bit for you guys, just so you all know what you're getting into." Danny grinned at her and shoved the paper in his backpack. He started to walk out when Leah stopped him once more. "This is probably an inappropriate question given that it's only been four days and who can really form a solid judgment about a person based on four days," Leah began to ramble.

Danny held up a hand and his smile warmed to one of genuine regard. "You're doing just fine Ms. Gaede," he promised her. Leah exhaled in relief and waved him out of the classroom.

Unaware that she was being watched, Leah went to sit at her desk and pulled the manila folder beneath her planner. Flipping the cover open she pulled out the pictures she'd taken from the woods on Monday afternoon. In the past few days she'd been too busy to even think about the astrological symbols, but she had a free period now and nothing else to do. Rising to her feet she held up the picture showing the full configuration and wrote the symbols on the board in the circle.

"What were you doing," she muttered under her breath, tilting her head to the side. Stepping back, she crossed her arms over her chest and toyed with the sapphire ring she wore on her right ring finger. The antique gold shone dimly under the fluorescent light, caging the oval sapphire in a lattice of thin vines. The ring, older than one would normally guess, never left Leah's person.

For the last four days she'd mulled over the possibilities of what the symbols meant and why she even cared. Sure Leah had seen the planetary signs before, she'd used them countless times in her own work. But it was the way they were scribbled angrily before smeared and crossed over, as though the maker lost his patience midway through his work. "Were you practicing?" She whispered and traced triangular patterns with her fingers between the various planets.

Leah returned to the pictures and the notes she'd scribbled in the margins. The identical nature of all seven stones did not escape Leah. If they were made through any natural means she'd gladly eat her AP teacher's manual. No, if she had to hazard a guess, Leah was willing to bet that they were made that way on purpose. Plucking her reading glasses from her desk, Leah perched the tortoise shell frames on the bridge of her nose and looked closer at the actual picture. A groan of frustration escaped her lips and she turned towards her windows.

Behind her, Leah could not see Stiles Stilinski shove his head and torso into the classroom and snap a picture of her board before Scott McCall yanked him back into the hallway. Leah ran her fingers over the braid she'd coiled into a bun at the top of her head, securing it with a bobby pin tipped with a large pearl. Leah looked back at the board and scowled.

"You were practicing," she confirmed, as if speaking to the actual maker. "But for what?"

Leah snatched up the piece of chalk again and started to scribble the astrological symbols on the left-hand side of the board. To the right of each symbol she wrote the name of a particular metal, starting with base lead, running all the way up to gold. "Maybe you were making your metals, just going about it in an odd way."

The bell rang in the hallway again, startling Leah and dragging her attention. Narrowing her eyes at the board, she picked up the eraser and cleared her notes and thoughts away, determined to bury her musings. Picking up the pictures, she shoved them back in the folder and then into her leather bag. This was not why she'd come to Beacon Hills.

"The nemeton," she said under her breath. "That's why you came here. You came to observe, to study, and to experiment. You didn't come to be Leah Gaede Supernatural Detective," she chided herself.

Yet, Leah felt as though she'd been telling herself that for the past few days, but she hadn't believed a word. She, like just about anyone else on the planet, enjoyed a good mystery. The thrill of the unknown would always give Leah a rush, just as it had her entire life; and Beacon Hills? It teemed with the unknown. The mysteries surrounding this little town spilled over the edges, sending the whispers and rumors to corners far beyond its borders. Rumors that reached Leah all the way in Cambridge.

First it was the Argents, getting their collective familial hands dirty again. "Big surprise," muttered Leah under her breath. Then it was the Kanima, a supernatural legend that in and of itself alone nearly brought Leah to Beacon Hills, just for the mere opportunity to observe it in action. But, she stayed put and remained holed up in her labs in New England, keeping a low profile, doing what she promised her mentor, Matthias, she'd do. Darker stories drifted into the supernatural circles of the earth. Leah heard her Seer contacts talking about the Calaveras on the move again.

But all of Leah's good intentions of avoiding the rumors and whispers coming from this little corner of California slipped away when she heard the real meat of the rumors. A nemeton, bigger and more powerful than any she'd seen in Europe, brought back to power. Names and words like Darach, Nogitsune, true alpha, and Hale floated from circle to circle, provoking the curiosity of more than just Leah's contacts in Europe. She'd been halfway to packing her bags and buying a plane ticket when Matthias called her away, causing Leah to rearrange her travel plans.

Yet, Leah's scientific and supernatural curiosity got the better of her in the end. So she followed the draw of the nemeton, letting it pull her towards this tiny town, much the same way it had countless other supernatural beings in the past year. Hungry for information, she concocted an effective cover story, gathered her documentation, and picked out a house on the outskirts of town. Three weeks later, here she was, sitting in a high school chemistry classroom, staring at symbols so familiar, so engrained in Leah's own being that it was like reconnecting with old friends. The movements of the planets, the power each symbol carried called to Leah, beckoning her to a life she'd long left behind. But the signs and sigils burned brightly behind her eyes every time she closed them, taking her back, taking her to a place she was unwilling to go.

"Stop," she said firmly to herself. "You're here for purely scientific reasons," she practically growled and shoved her bag back in its drawer.

Taking in a deep breath, Leah turned her attention to a more noble pursuit. Namely, her pursuit of educating today's youth. Leah began to review lesson plans she'd made over the past few days, determined to do the two things she'd come to Beacon Hills to do: study the nemeton's power and teach high school chemistry to the best of her abilities. And how hard could either be? After all, Leah was an Alchemist, she'd practically been born for this line of work.

X X X

Derek ducked into Beacon Hills Coffee and Tea. Pushing the sleeves of his shirt up his forearms, he approached the counter. While he pretended to stare at the menu, he could hear a heartbeat close to him break into a dead sprint. "Can I help you with something?" A voice cut over the heartbeat, high and fluttering. Turning his attention to the girl behind the counter, he fought the urge to sigh.

The girl at the register couldn't have been a day over seventeen, if that. She stared up at him with doe eyes, reminding him strongly of a deer caught in the headlights. They blinked hard several times and she nervously brushed her hands over her ponytail that fell onto her shoulder. Of the many benefits to being a werewolf, Derek had to say this was one of his least favorite tradeoffs. Whatever floral shampoo she used combined with a strong scent that rolled off her in droves. It slammed into him with full force and he let his head reel back slightly, taking in the instant spike in the girl's temperature, coinciding with that scent, that overbearing, exhausting scent.

_Attraction_. It practically poured off the poor girl's skin, leeching across the countertop and assaulting him. Derek felt bad for her, it wasn't something she could help and if she knew what he did she'd probably curl under the counter in complete embarrassment. He tore his gaze from her awestruck face, back to the menu and then down to the counter top. Involuntarily, his lips twitched, further spiking his own guilt. Derek had his arrogant tendencies that he wasn't particularly proud of. He knew he was attractive and he'd certainly used it to his advantage before. But that didn't give him the right to take pleasure in the unfortunate betrayal of this teenage girl's hormones.

"I'll take 12 ounce cup for coffee," he said. Upon hearing his voice the girl's pulse quickened and he fought the urge to sigh. Focusing his hearing on anything else, he reached for his wallet in his back pocket and paid for his coffee cup, turning away to the line of casks. Caffeine had zero effect on Derek, but that didn't erase his liking for a cup of strong dark roast coffee with a single splash of cream.

As a rule, Derek never kept his back to doors, so he stood to the side as he poured cream into his coffee and stirred it in using a flimsy stir stick. The door opened, sending in a rush of air, cooler than it had been in previous weeks. Looking up, he found the beams of early morning sun casting through the windows and a woman walked in. Leah Gaede pushed her sunglasses on top of her head, sitting in front of the messy ballerina bun that held her abundant hair in place. Her brilliant grey eyes warmed at the sight of the counter and she walked confidently towards the counter. Derek's eyes travelled over the skinny jeans she wore with a black silk tank and a black blazer, piped in white. Blissfully unaware of her surroundings, Leah approached the counter, opening her wallet as she did. Derek forcefully ignored the beam of her white smile as she greeted the counter girl.

"Good morning," she said in a warm, almost smoky tone. "I'll take a twenty-ounce non-fat iced caramel latte, please." The counter girl hastily scribbled the order down on the side of a clear plastic cup and Leah shifted her weight in her nude high heels. Derek wasn't sure what the dress code policy was for teachers at Beacon Hills High School these days, but he'd definitely never had a teacher who wore such expensive clothing. Thin gold chains glinted at her neck and she toyed with them absently while the counter girl rang up her order.

"He's staring at you," said the counter girl in a low voice, one that Derek would never have heard if not for his heightened senses.

"Excuse me?" Enquired Leah, a question pulling the tone of her voice just a shade higher.

In a not-so-smooth move, the counter girl's eyes flickered to Derek and back to Leah. "Derek Hale is staring at you, from the creamer station," she muttered in a low breath. Derek bodily fought the urge to sigh as he felt the jealousy weave into the girl's emotive state. Was there something about him that invited teenage girls to fall head over heels? He'd never understand it.

Leah arched a manicured eyebrow and slipped her credit card into her wallet, the cobalt blue color of her nail polish flashing under the spotlights above her. "Who is Derek Hale?" Leah asked and Derek's interest further piqued. This was, after all, the entire reason he'd come to the coffee shop this morning, for an opportunity to see what else he could learn about her.

The counter girl drummed her fingers on the laminate surface of the countertop, creating a fascinating contrast to Leah. Derek noticed for the first time that the woman stood almost unnaturally still, entirely unphased by the girl's obvious flustered state. "He comes in here sometimes, he's like the last surviving member of his family, they all died in a fire like seven years ago."

Derek's frustration began to prickle in his stomach. If that girl said any more then he might as well walk right up to Leah and flash his claws at her. Leah remained perfectly unresponsive, however, her heartbeat didn't jump even in the slightest. Suspicion narrowed his eyes and he focused all of his outward attention on his coffee. "Never heard of the Hale family," said Leah. Derek's head snapped up, her heartbeat quickened over the words. "But I'm sure whatever he's staring at, it isn't me."

The girl sighed dreamily. "He's totally staring at you and he's totally gorgeous."

Now Derek did roll his eyes. "I'm sure he is," she said. "But you should remember that good looks aren't everything," she said with a wink and accepted her coffee as the counter girl handed it off to Leah.

Derek, so fascinated by listening in on their conversation, had forgotten to move. Turning so his back faced Leah, he heard the telltale staccato of her high heels on the tile floor as she approached. Her scent hit him first, light and easy, laced through with a warmth he couldn't identify. In his peripheral vision, he could see her standing next to him, wiping off a small amount of coffee that had slipped down the side of her cup. A series of gold bracelets adorned her narrow wrist. "You know you've been stirring your coffee for the last three minutes, I think the cream is sufficiently mixed in by now."

Amusement sparked in her tone and Derek immediately stopped what he was doing. He threw away the stir stick and snatched a lid from the stack, popping it on the top of his cup. The barest half-laugh escaped Leah's pale pink lips and she shook her head, causing the gold spade studs she wore in her ears to flash under the light.

"So, Derek Hale, huh?"

Leah's voice carried a teasing note and she reached across him for a straw. In that instant she tilted her head towards him and their eyes locked. Twin hurricanes evaluated him and there wasn't a single note of fear anywhere within them. As Derek stared her down, he could see into the depths of her eyes and they seemed endless, ageless even. He said nothing, his jaw clenching, causing a vein to pop out in his neck. Leah's eyes darted to it and her lips curled up into an infuriating smirk. In a swift motion, she tore the paper wrapper off her straw and stabbed it through the opening in the lid on her drink.

"Didn't your mother teach you that it's rude to stare?" She wondered aloud and turned to leave. Leah paused and looked at him over her shoulder. "And eavesdrop?"

Derek's eyebrows rose in response to the devious smirk she gave him. Leah Gaede winked at him, and turned away, sipping her coffee as she did. Stunned, he watched her walk out of the coffee shop and back into the sunshine, cool and entirely unruffled by their encounter. Speechless. She'd literally left him speechless. So much so that by the time it occurred to Derek to track her down and ask her just what the hell that was, it was beyond too late.

"Uhm, excuse me?" An elderly gentleman startled Derek and he shook his head, stepping aside to let the man get to the cream.

Completely thrown, he walked out of the coffee shop, pulling his phone out of his back pocket as he did. Derek dialed the first number that popped into his mind. "Hey Derek, what's up?" Scott's voice piped in through the other end of the line.

"Scott, keep an eye on your chemistry teacher. I don't know what she is but she knows what I am."

Derek heard Scott curse under his breath. "Do you thinks he knows about the rest of us?"

"I have no idea, so tell everyone to keep a low profile until we figure it out."

He could practically see Scott nodding while shoving his books into his backpack. "What are you going to do?"

The multitude of options at Derek's disposal were few and far between. But one name, as much as it pained him to admit it, stuck out in his mind. "I'm going to call Argent and see if he's up for a little fact-finding."

This solution seemed to appease Scott. The two hung up seconds later and Derek found himself getting into his SUV, pulling up a number that he never, ever thought he'd have on his speed dial. "Derek, what can I do for you?" Argent's sure voice filtered through Derek's ears.

Derek dropped his head against the leather headrest in the driver's seat. "What's your stance on breaking and entering?" Derek enquired.

X X X

Leah shut the cover on the piano. Sweeping through the music room, she ensured that all of the chairs were back in place and the music books were neatly stacked on the shelves along the back wall. Pausing in the doorway, Leah stared back into the room, examining the room as a whole. It carried a strange air of heaviness, as though a multitude of different types of music were made within the protection of its insulated walls.

Hitting the light switch, Leah wondered how many beautiful pieces of music were played in that room, along with how many romances blossomed and wilted there as well. Shaking her head, she fought the tiny smile that toyed on her lips as she mused over the successful meeting of the music group. They'd settled on several pieces to practice over the course of the semester. Leah met Holly Smith's father, an attractive man in his late thirties, all too happy to help his sophomore daughter out with her passion for the violin.

All-in-all, the meeting left Leah with a measure of satisfaction she hadn't felt in a long time. She enjoyed not just playing the role of passive participant in society, but actually doing something productive. For the past several years the only person Leah had played piano for was herself. The rush she got out of playing for others was something she'd forgotten until the meeting. She'd played the piano part from Perpetuum Mobile. As her fingers flew across the keys, Leah quite forgot everything about the past several days and her anxieties.

The sheer joy she derived from playing wrapped her in a shield, and Leah let it protect her down the dark walk to her classroom to gather the rest of her things and lock her door. She'd been warned at the start of the school year that Beacon Hills High wasn't the safest building at night. Leah had her guesses as to why, but the warnings didn't do much to scare her. Though she'd be lying to herself if she said the warnings didn't at least put her on heightened alert.

As she walked down the empty hallway, her high heels created a sharp staccato on the floor, announcing her presence to anything and everything that could be lurking in the building. Just the other day she heard Coach Finstock talking about the night over a year and a half ago when five students were trapped in the school alone at night, an incident that ended with the death of a janitor. Leah paused outside of her door and looked around in all directions. Peering through the narrow panel of glass set into her door, she was satisfied that the room was empty and she entered. Hastily, Leah grabbed her bag and opened it up, ensuring that everything she needed lay inside.

"Bed," she muttered under her breath, voicing her deepest desire at the moment. She'd already had a long week and still one more day to go before she could go into hiding for the weekend to recover. Leah hadn't spent this much time in the company of other people in several years, and she wasn't exactly accustomed to how tiring social interaction could be.

Gathering up her academic planner, Leah fished her keys out of her bag and walked out of her classroom, pausing long enough to lock the door behind her. The past few days weighed heavy on her mind as she considered the astrological signs and learning the identity of the man who nearly hit her with his car the week before.

Derek Hale's face was as unfamiliar to her as the rest of the Hale family. Leah had never met a member of the Hale family in her life, but she'd certainly heard of them. A civilized werewolf pack living in and protecting Beacon Hills from all manner of threats, the Hales were not just widely known through the country. They were also widely respected, or at least their matriarch, Talia Hale had been. Leah couldn't say much for the rest of the family, but she'd never heard a cross word with regard to Talia Hale, ever.

But after meeting Derek Hale on three separate occasions, she had to venture a guess that while he clearly benefitted from his mother's reputed beauty, the apple fell far from the tree in all other respects. Smug, arrogant, and suspicious were the first words that popped into Leah's head upon the mere thought of Talia Hale's oldest surviving child.

Blowing out a sigh, Leah pushed the door open that led out into the faculty parking lot. She felt a small measure of guilt for judging Derek Hale so harshly. It wasn't like he was the only person keeping secrets. And only this morning she'd let her irritation get the better of her. An angry flush swirled into her cheeks as she thought of the way she'd practically screamed at Derek that she knew exactly who and what she was. In all honesty, Leah had been a few trombones short of a parade announcing to him her awareness of Beacon Hill's particular subculture.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she berated herself, walking out into the cool night.

Overhead the crescent moon cast a narrow band of light along the trees that lined the school. Leah paused to check her surroundings. A breeze fluttered across her face, cooling the heat in her cheeks. Leah wasn't possessed with any sort of special ability to see or hear, but that didn't erase the way the hairs on the back of her neck stood up, giving rise to the foreboding that settled in the pit of her stomach. Leah turned in a circle, clutching her keys in a defensive position, feeling as though she was being watched.

Nothing happened. Leah relaxed only marginally, enough to pick up her pace. Once inside her car, Leah locked the doors and relaxed into her seat, shutting her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. Paranoia wasn't a good look for her, and lately Leah felt she'd been looking over her shoulder far too much for her own comfort. Pushing the button on her keyless ignition, Leah's car thrummed to life and she pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the empty school behind her.

X X X

"So that's her?" Chris Argent asked as he and Derek stepped out from their well-concealed spot near the main doors. The werewolf next to him was even more tense than usual and he shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah," he replied. Chris could hear the notes of anxiety lacing into Derek's voice. The man couldn't necessarily blame him. From a young age Derek hadn't had much good in his life and it seemed that by now, it was too much to hope that Derek ever would. But now, more than ever, Chris could see the toll the past few years had taken on Derek Hale.

As they jogged up the steps to the doors, Chris kept a sharp eye on their surroundings. Chris reached behind him, checking that his .45 was secure in it's usual place. The knife up his sleeve provided extra comfort, as did the second tucked into his boot. Derek's eyes swept through the hallway as they entered the building cautiously. "You know I'm starting to think that this school is more of a beacon for supernatural than anything else," said Chris under his breath.

The only light that spilled into the hallway came from the glowing exit signs at either end and the crescent moon that came in from the dimly lit classrooms. Derek led them to one of the chemistry rooms. "Scott says her classes are in this room," he muttered under his breath. Derek grasped the handle and turned to no avail.

Not surprising, thought Chris. If this Leah Gaede was connected to the supernatural in some way and she knew enough to know about the Hales, then she was certainly smart enough to lock her classroom door after her. "Not to worry," said Chris. Plunging his hand into his jacket pocket, he produced a small nylon case.

Derek's lips turned up in the barest of smirks as Chris unzipped it to reveal a set of lock picks. "Always be prepared?" The werewolf teased him.

"Something like that," muttered Chris under his breath and he knelt down to the doorknob. "Use your phone to give me a little bit of light," he instructed. A second later, Derek flashed the beam of the phone over the door handle. Chris took a deep breath and set to work.

X X X

Leah's new house sat on the outskirts of town, situated at the end of a winding road. The one story abode spread out across her land, splitting off into two distinct wings, the entire back half of the house abutting a body of water that fell somewhere between the status of enormous pond and miniscule lake. She'd fallen in love with the warm and archaic architecture upon first sight and as soon as she saw the massive basement, Leah made an offer on the spot.

After several days of hard work and the combined the help of a landscaper, painter, and moving company, Leah managed to make the house feel like a home. There were still many boxes she'd yet to unpack, but that was a task for this weekend. Stifling a yawn, she pulled into the driveway and killed the engine.

Her feet were absolutely killing her in her shoes as she got out and trudged up the flagstone path that ended at a small gate. Leah let herself through the gate and made her way up the four stairs onto the massive deck that looked out over the water's surface. The promise of a glass of wine, leftovers, and her warm bed motivated Leah to push through her exhaustion and she unlocked the French doors that led into the living room.

Leah's eyes snapped shut as she let out a yawn, turning away from the interior of her house to shut the doors and lock them behind her. The sound of a gentle clunk on the surface of her hardwood floors reached Leah's ears. Instinctively, she froze, every cell in her body kicking into high alert. Eyes wide, she searched the glass panes of her doors, trying to decipher a reflection to help her. But all that she could see was the moon pouring it's waning light over the lake and through the doors.

Slowly, she turned around, trying to map out the room to find a weapon she could use to defend herself. In the center of the living room, very near where her sofa sat, Leah could see an eerie red glow pierce the darkness.

Clenching her fists, Leah tried to edge towards her fireplace, determined to reach the poker. "You should probably give that foolish game up now, Leah."

The deep, gravelly voice reached her, turning Leah's blood to ice.

**A/N: Sooo, Leah is an Alchemist. I want to clarify now, I've done quite a bit of preliminary research into both the scientific and mystical sides of alchemy and I'm planning on incorporating and weaving several different cultures together to create Leah's particular brand of Alchemy. BUT because this story revolves around the supernatural, there will be some totally distorted aspects of alchemy that coincide with a supernatural spin on the subject. **

**Seriously though y'all, let me know what you think. If it seems too strange or too far-fetched (in TW, is that even possible?) then I definitely want to know. **

**Also, I cannot thank you enough for all of the favorites and follows! They were such a huge pick-me-up in the midst of my marathon study sessions. **

**Also thanks to Guest and Kat229 for the reviews: I am glad that you guys think the story is original so far. And I'm very excited to dig into Leah's past too, I've had a lot of fun piecing it together so far!**

**Much, much love - Brose**


	4. How to Scare Your Coroner

**A/N: The Bar Exam is on Tuesday. After three straight months of studying like crazy…I literally could not study for another five minutes. So I decided to finish this chapter to distract myself from just how terrified I am of the Bar! **

**I owe an enormous thank you to everyone who favorited and followed, only two full chapters and almost fifty followers? Y'all are amazing! Also special thanks to angelskull16, PsychoticSmartypants, and Amcclel1489 for the reviews! **

**Alsoooo if season 4 tracks the way the midseason trailer made it seem…this story is going to be 100% AU, I'm planning to wrap up the Braeden storyline sooner than expected AND I'm just straight up going to pretend like season 4 NEVER happened! Don't worry though…some things won't change…Derek's life won't be easy, Scott will be ever the moral hero, and Peter has an endgame!**

**Disclaimer – I don't own Teen Wolf!**

**Chapter 3**

**How to Scare Your Coroner**

Leah's classroom door swung open. In the darkness, Derek could still clearly see the set up of her lab tables, all manner of measuring and chemical equipment laid out neatly across the surface of each. Flashbacks and memories of his own high school experience came flooding back and he recalled with a measure of distaste how much he hated chemistry in high school. Neat handwriting scrawled across the chalkboard behind Leah's desk, revealing detailed notes and lists of the major components of the periodic table. Derek walked into the classroom and behind him Argent flipped on the lights.

Coming to stand behind her desk, Derek examined Leah's writing. It was clear and concise, each of her letters and numbers made with sure strokes of the chalk. A massive colored printout of the periodic table hung on the wall to the left of the chalkboard and to the right a large poster detailing the scientific method. Throughout the room he noted several posters, each dedicated to famous scientists over the course of history. On Leah's desk sat a single framed photograph.

"Family member?" Chris asked as Derek lifted the photo to inspect it. The picture was of Leah and a man who was likely in his late fifties. The man's dark eyes smiled wisely into the camera, crows feet cracking out from the corners. His salt and pepper hair was styled neatly from his face and he wore a neatly trimmed goatee. He had his arm around Leah and she beamed for the camera, her caramel hair falling over a single shoulder in a torrent of wild waves. "She's pretty."

Derek bristled at the comment, though he couldn't say why for certain. "Yeah," he drew the word out. "Until she opens her mouth."

Chris chuckled and Derek set the picture down, casting one last look at her warm grey eyes and white smile. "Therein lies the problem with most women." The man was preaching to the choir. Chris paused at Leah's desk and slipped his fingers beneath her center drawer, it opened with no effort. "So what exactly are we looking for?"

Derek found her right-side top drawer unlocked as well. "Not sure, anything that can tell me who or what this woman is."

Carefully, Derek pulled out the stack of folders that lay within the drawer. "Doesn't this seem a little extreme? Breaking into her office in the middle of the night and going through her things?"

Tilting his head back to look at Chris, Derek raised a single eyebrow. In the grand scheme of ridiculous and illegal things they'd done, Derek wasn't even sure that this cracked the top twenty five. Catching his drift, Chris waved a dismissive hand and started to go through the contents of Leah's middle drawer. Folder after folder, Derek rifled through the papers and found nothing but class notes, lecture handouts, drawn up quizzes, and model exams. "She knew about me," said Derek as he shut the last folder and reached into the far back of the drawer, coming up empty. "Which means she knows more than she's letting on to anyone."

"Scott and Stiles said they saw her looking at those pictures you showed me, of the astrological symbols. You guys anywhere closer to figuring that out?" Chris wondered as he carefully removed the organizing tray filled with highlighters, post-it notes, and other office supplies.

"No, Deaton is putting together some research for us. But those symbols are used in so many subcultures it's impossible to tell what they were used for without more information."

"So basically, we're working on absolutely nothing," said Chris in a flat voice. Derek's muscles twitched involuntarily but eventually he nodded. "Derek, you know there's a chance this could all be nothing."

Derek opened the middle drawer and found nothing but her teacher's manuals and a box of granola bars. "Yeah but its Beacon Hills, do you really want to take that risk?"

The two men stared at each other for a long second before Chris shrugged, nodding his head in assent. "Point taken," he muttered and shut her desk drawer. Drawer by drawer they came up with nothing except what Derek would expect a teacher to have in her inventory. They moved on, checking her supply closet, looking through the cabinets and each lab station but to no avail. Whoever Leah Gaede was, she covered her tracks exceptionally well.

Chris rubbed the back of his neck and went to lean against her chalkboard. "Derek, I hate to break it to you but there's nothing here. Maybe she was just taking a wild guess, maybe she doesn't actually know anything."

But Derek wouldn't be dissuaded. "You should have seen the way she looked at me, she knows. And I'll bet you anything she knows what the symbols on those stones mean."

Sighing, Chris stepped forward and braced his hands on the desk. His brow furrowed and he tilted his head to the side, as though a new thought occurred to him. Crouching down, he felt his hand beneath the center drawer of Leah's desk. In a swift motion, he curled his hand around a rough cylinder and pulled out and up in a sharp arc. The blade of a dagger flashed beneath the fluorescent light of Leah's classroom and the metallic 'schwing' of the metal hit Derek's ears like a freight train. Whatever Derek expected to find in Leah's classroom, that was not it.

Chris Argent the weapons expert kicked in and he held the blade between his hands, the point gently depressing into his finger while he examined it. "It's a cross-hilt dagger," said Chris, an appraising tone lacing his voice. "Onyx handle, laid in with gold and capped with a moonstone." Derek frowned.

"What the hell is a chemistry teacher doing with that?"

"That's exactly what I'd like to know. This is old," said Christ and he gripped the blade firmly in his right hand. "It's very old and expertly crafted." He took a few swings with it and then set it on top of Leah's desk calendar, creating an unusual contradiction. Derek rubbed his face with one hand and leaned against the desk, unable to fathom that they could possibly be dealing with another psychotic teacher. _Again_.

Derek fished his phone from his back pocket and took a few pictures of the knife while Chris sat down on the floor, ducking beneath Leah's desk. "Hand me your phone," he said and held his hand up for it. Derek handed it off, and Chris took a picture of the underside of the desk. "There's nothing unique about the sheath," he muttered and resurfaced, sliding the phone across the desktop. Derek pocketed it and braced both of his hands on the desk, hunching over the knife.

"Now do you believe me?" Enquired Derek, sarcasm dripping in his voice.

"I don't know enough to say whether she's a threat or not, but whoever Leah Gaede is, she's got good taste in antique weaponry."

X X X

"What the HELL is wrong with you!" Leah shouted, grappling for the light switch. A warm glow filled her living room, casting relief over the simple cherry furniture and her caramel leather sofa. A man sat in the dead center, watching her carefully with his dark brown eyes. Between his partially open legs he held a simple black cane, carved in intricate patterns and capped with a faceted red stone. Both of his hands rest atop the cane and his lips lifted into a smile.

"What? I'm not allowed to visit my favorite student?"

Leah pressed a hand to her chest in a feeble attempt to still her racing heart. "You nearly gave me a heart attack Matthias!" She half-shouted and slumped against her fireplace, coming to sit down on the ledge. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Leah kicked off her shoes, letting the nude heels fly to rest beneath her coffee table. "You can't just go around letting yourself into someone's house in the middle of the night and sit waiting in the dark like a _serial killer_. And for the record I'm your only student."

Matthias merely chuckled and rose to his feet, relying heavily on the strength of his cane as he did. "Well as you can see I'm hardly a serial killer, though I do admit to having a flair for the dramatic."

His three-fold gait clunked across the floor as he approached Leah. The moment of her fear passed quickly and she turned her head up to look at him, a wide smile finally cracking across her face. Rising to her feet, she walked into his open arms, accepting his fierce embrace. "It's wonderful to see you again, my darling friend," she cried and kissed his cheek with gusto. "I thought you were in Africa? Or was it India? I can never remember," she said, kicking into motion.

Leah shed her black blazer and folded it over the back of her loveseat. "I was en route to Cambridge to pay you a visit when I heard you'd changed your plans. Imagine my surprise to find out that you'd up and moved to Beacon Hills, California," said Matthias in a musing voice, he followed Leah across the open living room to where a high dining room table sat beneath the glow of a wrought iron chandelier. Leah veered off to a large antique cabinet and opened the doors to reveal a stock of liquor within it.

"Yeah, it was a last minute decision," said Leah. Tapping her fingers along the various bottles in the she paused as she found the particular bottle she was looking for. "Will Jameson suit you just fine? Or shall I break into the good stuff?"

Matthias chuckled and nodded his assent. "Make it a double," he replied. "We have a lot to talk about, you and I."

Leah's stomach plummeted, though she expected this response. They remained in uneasy silence as Leah poured healthy measures into two crystal lowball glasses. They took seats at the adjoining corner of her table, Matthias resting his cane against the side of his seat. "You look good," she said with a warm smile, taking in his weathered, but unchanged features. Matthias arched a wiry eyebrow and smoothed his hand over his black and grey goatee.

"I should hope so, considering I haven't changed at all since the last time you saw me," he said and took a sip of his drink. Leah raised her glass to her lips and let the whiskey slip over her tongue, burning pleasantly in the back of her throat as it went down. "Wish I could say the same for you."

A scowl touched Leah's lips and she folded her arms grumpily over her chest. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're not sleeping, Leah. I can see it in your face," he pointed out and her scowl deepened. No, Leah had not been sleeping. Every night for the past several weeks she'd woken in a cold sweat, staring out over an endless desert, the wind whipping sand in her face. The end result of her sleepless nights left Leah with dark circles clinging to the undersides of her eyes and a certain pallor to her ivory skin. "Do you want to tell me why you came to this Godforsaken little town? Or shall I start filling in the blanks for you?"

Irritation prickled in pit of Leah's stomach. "Since you apparently already know so much, why don't you tell me," she challenged, curling her fingers around her glass.

Matthias deigned to chuckle at her petulance. Stroking his goatee thoughtfully, Matthias fixed her with an all-knowing sort of stare. "Nice to know your penchant for childish antics hasn't changed." Leah rolled her eyes, only further proving his point. "Of course I know why you're here. If the rumors reached me all the way in Somalia, I knew they'd surely reach you."

"A nemeton, Matthias," said Leah forcefully. "One of the largest in the United States, and it's giving off enough energy to pull half of creation to it, turning this town into a literal beacon. Of course I came, you know I wouldn't miss this for the world."

"To what end? Leah?" Matthias enquired before taking another sip. "You've had the opportunity to study a hundred of these over the course of your life. Why this one? Why here? Why now?"

It was a worthy series of questions, questions Leah couldn't quite answer. For the last three weeks she'd beaten herself up over those very same inquiries to no avail. In her lifetime she'd heard of bigger and more powerful centers of energy, she'd even seen them with her own eyes. But this nemeton in particular called to her. Perhaps she, like many other unusually abled beings, was sucked into the draw from the nemeton's pull. Whatever the real reasons were, Leah couldn't be sure. But she certainly had a litany of excuses in the interim.

"Because the science is better. I'm smarter, better trained. I have the ability to study not only its chemical components but the energy signatures as well. Do you know how much we can learn from it? How much good we could do?" Leah drained a quarter of her glass in a large gulp, attempting to calm her bout of nervous energy. Sliding out of her chair, she padded across the hardwood floors, into her open kitchen. Within the depths of her pathetically empty fridge, Leah pulled out a box of leftover Chinese food. Staring at the pitiful Styrofoam container, she contemplated heating it up but decided against.

"And do you have any idea how much evil has come of it already? Christ almighty, Leah! We're not talking about a simple Druid's spell. This nemeton is a magnet, drawing all manner of creatures toward it both good and bad, begging chaos to erupt."

Leah's blood ran cold, she dropped the fork she'd pulled from a drawer. It clattered to the floor and she kept her back to Matthias. Head bowed, the sweep of her bangs dislodged and came to fall across her forehead. "You mean chaos like me," she said in a low, dangerous voice.

She could feel the tension crackle in the air between them, forking in unseen lightning bolts. Leah closed her eyes and she could see the flashes of old memories, blinding her. Matthias's silence discomfited her and rubbed at the still-raw holes in her heart. Blinking hard, she tried to dispel the fields of red that clouded her vision.

"Yes."

His grave voice rumbled over the single word and Leah winced, hard. "It's not like that anymore Matthias."

Leah heard the scraping of his chair across the floor. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. His cane hit the floor in regular beats until his hand came to rest on her bare shoulder, shocking her out of her reverie. "I know that it's not your intention, Leah. But coming here was a dangerous move. You buried the supernatural side of your abilities, and that's where they should stay."

Instinctually, she turned and buried her face in the crook of his neck. Closing her eyes, she inhaled the familiar scent of old books, chemicals, and the ocean air. Matthias cradled her head against him. Leah curled her fingers around the lapel of his jacket as she pulled back, sniffling. "I want to study the nemeton," she said firmly. "I can do that and stay out of this town's mess."

Matthias cradled her face in a fatherly fashion, kissing her forehead. "I want to believe you, Leah. But over the years I've learned that your inquisitiveness is simultaneously your best and worst trait." A smile became her, despite the weight of their conversation.

"So what do I do?" She asked, her voice cracking gently over the words.

Leah waited on baited breath for his answer. In their long years of knowing one another, Matthias had never steered her wrong before. He'd been her mentor and a father figure for almost Leah's entire life. Everytime Leah thought she couldn't get up and walk another step, Matthias had always been there to pick her up off the floor, to carry her forward until she could carry herself again. "We both stay," he said firmly, surprising her. "Leah, you've come so far and if this is where you want to take your next branch of study then I won't deny you that, but not alone."

"What are you going to do?" She asked.

"I've already used a contact and found an opening as the newest professor of mythology at Northern California State University." Leah rolled her eyes and slumped back against the counter, exhausted from her minor emotional catharsis.

"Conveniently located in the next town over," she teased.

Matthias grinned at her before casting his eyes to the leftovers on the counter. "There's much to discuss," he said. "Perhaps we should do it over an actual meal and not whatever that is."

Laughter threatened to bubble from her lungs. Leah sighed and ambled over to the sofa, sliding her blazer back onto her shoulders. "It's sesame chicken and fried rice." Matthias made a face and flipped the lid of the container shut, carrying it to the trashcan that stood on one side of Leah's kitchen island.

"It looks like something I'd eat only if there were nothing left on the planet."

Leah toed her shoes from beneath the coffee table and gathered her purse back up. "You're too picky, Matthias. If you're going to live under this roof, then you're going to have to get used to takeout every now and again."

She offered him her arm and Matthias took it, gently tapping her shin with the front of his cane. "I will most certainly not!"

X X X

Exhaustion weighed on Derek's shoulders as he slid the massive door back, revealing his loft. It was exactly as he'd left it earlier in day. Rubbing the back of his neck, Derek walked across the massive, mostly empty space and turned on the old desk lamp that sat on the main table. A stack of books sat next to it, books he'd been skimming through to help answer his questions and doubts. He thought about picking up where he'd left off, but decided against it. The notion of falling into his bed and not getting out of it for a week sounded much better.

He'd felt this way for weeks now, drained from the fallout after the Dead Pool and nearly losing the spark that made Derek, Derek. In the wake of all of that, Derek found himself facing sleepless nights and a bevy of nightmares vivid enough to frighten even him. More than once he'd considered packing up and leaving, taking what he could with him and finding someplace quiet and new, some place with a fresh start. "A blank slate," he muttered under his breath.

The scent hit him before he heard the movement. Derek tensed just as a pair of hands slid up his tight shoulders, curling over the top. "You need to loosen up."

Braeden's voice filtered into his ears. Once, not long ago, the sound delighted and thrilled Derek. Now, it just reminded him of the uncomfortable position he'd been put in. Another reminder of the darkness he wanted to leave behind. Another piece of baggage he'd rather let go of. Braeden's nimble fingers danced down his upper arms, moving fast until she hugged his waist, pressing her chest to his back.

"I'm fine," he breathed. It was a complete lie, one Derek had said more times than he could count over the last few months. "What are you doing here?"

He hadn't meant for the question to come out the way it did, brusque and dismissive. But it had and he immediately felt the air change. Braeden withdrew her searching touch and Derek turned around to face her, crossing his arms over his chest. Wide brown eyes took him in, peering out beneath long lashes. All of her thick hair hung about her face in soft curls, partially obscuring the scars that ran down the left side of her face. Braeden was beautiful, there was no getting around it, and Derek could admit to having spent a fair amount of time in the previous months enjoying that beauty. But time and circumstance was finally cooling his regard.

"I came here to check in," she said pushing her hair behind her shoulders. "And to see you."

Derek didn't miss the decided order of Braeden's priorities. Money first and then sex. That's all it really was. For Derek it seemed that's all it ever was when it came to the women in his life. Braeden didn't even bother putting up the pretense of a relationship, preferring to leave the labels off whatever it was that they were doing. While he commended her honesty, the lack of companionship left something to be desired. Derek didn't necessarily want a woman in his life who depended on him and needed him, he was done with damsels in distress. But it couldn't hurt to have someone who wanted more than just a physical release whenever she was in town.

"Peter's not budging," he said stiffly. Braeden's beautiful face hardened just a fraction, and he could see the disappointment flashing in her dark eyes. It served as a painful reminder that she'd turn on him without a second thought Peter failed to come through on his end of the bargain.

"And did you tell him what would happen to him if he doesn't come through?" She enquired. Derek thought of the modified assault rifle he'd seen her carrying not that long ago.

Derek had zero interest in being on the barrel end of Braeden's expert aim. Peter, however, didn't seem to mind in the slightest. "Yeah, he doesn't seem to be that concerned."

Braeden's eyes narrowed and she drew closer to him, resting her hands on Derek's forearms. Her fingers pressed tight into his skin, inciting just the faintest trace of a burn in the pit of his stomach. "I kept up my end of the deal," she said and Derek could hear the restraint she put into her voice. "I'm not asking for anything other than the price I was promised."

"And I'll get it for you, just as soon as I figure out how," he said, frustrated. This was a painfully familiar conversation, one they'd had at least four times in his recent memory.

A darkness swept into her eyes. Rising to the tips of her toes, she let the tips of her fingers draw along his jaw line. Derek's entire body tightened in response, unsure of whether he felt like going there. "I really," she whispered her lips dragging along the curve of his neck. "Really," her tongue flicked across his pulse point. "Really don't want to turn my frustration onto you."

Derek placed his hands on Braeden's hips to steady her, drinking in her seduction. It always seemed to come down to the same thing. One more time wouldn't kill him, one more time wouldn't do any more damage than it already had. Maybe if Derek could keep her distracted it would buy him more time. Maybe it would turn into something more than this. Maybe.

Tilting his head down, he passively accepted her kiss. But his hands clenched her waist and he brought her closer to him. In one distinct way he knew that they were wrong for one another. Derek's one and only romantic notion in life was that two people should just fit together physically, mentally, and emotionally. He'd fit together with Paige, two perfect pieces of an imperfect puzzle. Derek didn't fit with Braeden. Physically their proportions led to an uncomfortableness, he bent too much to kiss her, she had to reach too far.

"I don't want you to either," he said at last, between her breathy kisses. Derek began to kiss back, twisting his fingers in her hair. The curls slipped easily through his fingers, allowing him to grasp the back of her neck and hold her in place. Braeden purred in his arms, wrapping herself around him in a familiar manner.

Derek knew it was wrong. If he were a better man he would walk away. If he were a smarter man he'd find a different means of keeping her distracted until he got the money. If he weren't so damn lonely then maybe he'd have the strength to walk away. But Derek Hale was none of these things at the moment, which allowed him to spin their bodies around and back Braeden into the table.

One more night, he thought in the midst of their passionate kiss. One more night wouldn't kill him. Braeden stripped his shirt away and as it fell to the floor, he closed his eyes. For some inexplicable, insane reason, a beautiful smiling face flashed in the blackness of his mind. It was a beautiful face, but it wasn't Braeden's.

X X X

A week after Matthias's arrival found Leah getting out of her car, headed for a local bar. The small cantina was a Beacon Hills teacher's favorite and she'd been coerced into attending happy hour by some of the younger teachers at the school. While the promise of going home and burying herself in research appealed to Leah on a much greater level than drinking with her fellow teachers, Leah also knew that part of blending in was making an effort. That, and if she was being really honest with herself, Leah was lonely. Matthias made for good intellectual company, but he knew next to nothing about popular culture and Leah couldn't have a conversation with him that didn't involve deep discussions on history and his latest alchemical achievements.

So, instead of getting sucked into the wormhole of Matthias's brilliant mind, Leah opted for a margarita and town gossip. She shut her door behind her and locked the car, shoving her keys inside the open top of her leather bag. With a sigh, Leah raked her fingers through her tousled waves and let the long strands fall across her shoulder. Samantha Bridges from the math department told Leah that the teachers usually met at Sol Cantina around five-thirty on Fridays. Leah couldn't remember the last time she spent time with people that were supposed to be within her own age range, she wasn't even sure she knew what to talk about.

Overhead, the sun was beginning to sink into the west, bathing the street in golden-orange rays. Sunglasses shielded her eyes from the worst of the glare and she paused at a street corner, shifting her weight in her high heels as she did. The skinny black pants she wore hugged her subtle curves, but Leah thought with longing for a comfortable pair of blue jeans and a beat up t-shirt.

The weight of the week hung over her, a dark rain cloud spilling its negativity on top of her head. Enduring moody high school students and an even moodier Matthias left Leah with a serious chip on her shoulder. The light changed and as she started walking across the street Leah was positive things couldn't get any worse until she saw who was getting out of his car on the other side of the road. Leah paused and almost turned around.

Derek Hale arched an eyebrow as he caught sight of her. Leah was not one to tuck her tail between her legs and run away at the first sight of adversity. Instead she continued her path across the street, possessing every intention of walking right past him and into the bar. Leah made a promise to Matthias to stay away from the supernatural, and that included avoiding Derek like the plague.

Setting her gaze straight ahead, Leah stepped onto the curb and aimed for the bar. She could see the hanging sign over the door. Curling her fingers around the strap of her bag, Leah focused on the sound her shoes made on the bricked sidewalk. Looking down to smooth out the eyelet lace shirt she wore, Leah looked up and came to a grinding halt.

"Jesus Christ!" She swore in a low voice. Derek Hale stood before her, his arms crossed over his broad chest. Recovering fast, Leah raised her fingers and brushed the sweep of her bangs from her brow. Twitching slightly, Leah made to take one step back and the started to side step him, thoroughly annoyed. "You do know that stalking is illegal in all fifty states, right?"

"Stalking?' Echoed Derek. Leah relished in the incredulous tone in his voice.

"I don't have any other explanation for why I'm seeing you for the fourth time in two weeks," replied Leah, tapping her toe impatiently on the ground.

Derek's jaw constricted before giving way to a sarcastic expression. "It's a small town."

Snorting in derisive laughter, Leah rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses. "Not that small," she snapped and then raised her eyebrows, signaling her annoyance. "Now, do you mind moving? I'm running late."

Derek made no move to get out of Leah's way. Not that she thought he would. "Late for what?" Suspicion dripped in his voice and practically oozed from every pore in his skin.

"For happy hour," she replied simply, her lips curling up into a simple smirk. "Not that it's any of your damn business."

"You're going to happy hour," he deadpanned, as if this were an inconceivable concept. "Why?"

"Because I like margaritas," she said tiredly, drawing out her words. Ahead of her, she could see Samantha and two other young teachers walking into the bar together. Leah wasn't really in the mood to make new friends, but anything had to be better than suffering through another Derek Hale confrontation. "Okay seriously, what is it? Do I have some sign on my back that says 'This is Leah, harass her to your heart's content?'"

"I just want to know what I'm dealing with," he replied.

Comprehension dawned on Leah. Once again, she bitterly regretted her decision to show her cards too early. Still, she crossed her arms over her chest, mimicking his tense posture. "Ah, I get it. Show me yours and I'll show you mine?"

"Something like that, yeah," said Derek.

Steepling her fingers over her mouth to hide her amused smile, Leah shook her head. Derek's neutral expression deepened into a scowl, that did nothing to serve him. "I would love to help you, Derek. Really, I would," Leah teased, all too happy to let him stew in the mystery. "But where's the fun in that?"

Neatly, she side stepped him and started to walk away when, as she knew he would, Derek caught back up to her. "What are you," he growled, his fierce voice betraying his frustration.

Leah sighed. "You're not exactly the master of subtle are you?"

A flash of metal caught Leah's attention. Snapping her head to the side, she watched as he produced a very familiar blade. The moonstone capping the handle caught the light and glimmered, casting colored shadows over her white shirt. Leah's mouth dropped open. "Neither are you," he replied and turned the knife over in his hand.

Leah's heart skipped several beats as her eyes darted from Derek's smug expression to the dagger in his hand. "You want to put that away before someone sees?" She snapped. "Not to mention you broke into my classroom?"

Derek looked at his reflection in the blade before turning it toward Leah's stunned face. Pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head, she narrowed her eyes at Derek, turning the full force of her stormy glare onto him. "Tell me, Leah," and his voice conveyed just as much acidity towards her as she felt for him. "What the hell is a high school chemistry teacher doing with a dagger like this?"

"You think all of this is connected, don't you," she replied, her voice dangerously low. "You think I have something to do with those symbols in the woods."

Derek aggressively shrugged his shoulders, pulling slightly at the sleeves of his shirt. "You certainly seem to know more than the average person."

Leah considered reaching out to take the dagger from him. Just seeing it out of its place made her uncomfortable. At the start of the school year, Leah placed the dagger in her classroom solely as a precautionary measure. She never thought she'd have to use it, and she certainly didn't expect to see Derek Hale standing before her, his fingers clenched around the antique handle. "I don't know anything more than you do," she hissed. "Why don't you take a real close listen to my heartbeat, Hale. I have nothing to do with those symbols, the day I saw you in the woods was the first time I'd seen them before."

She chose her words with extreme care, lest she betray her own working knowledge of what the symbols could have possibly meant. But Leah's heart didn't flinch beneath the weight of her statement. Derek kept a careful, untrusting green eye on her. "Happy now?"

A mutual current of loathing flowed between the pair. Leah kept her narrowed eyes on Derek, unable to discern any redeeming feature to his personality in that moment. He was suspicious and couldn't leave well enough alone. That in and of itself bothered Leah, but that he'd turned all of his interest on her. "Not even remotely."

Of course he wasn't. On some level Leah knew that Derek Hale wouldn't be satisfied until he had the whole truth about who she was and where she'd come from. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Leah blew out a protracted sigh and rocked back onto her heels. "I don't have anything to do with those symbols. All I want to do is continue teaching high school chemistry and go get a margarita with my co-workers, who incidentally are probably wondering where I am. So unless you plan on using that against me," she gestured to the dagger. "Why don't you hand it over and we can both go on our merry ways."

Derek stood up to his full height, his body practically quivering in anger. "I'm going to figure you out," he said. The seriousness of his tone left nothing to Leah's imagination.

"Leah!" A voice rang down the street. Derek shifted fast, pressing the flat of the dagger to his inner forearm to hide it. A woman stepped out of the doorway into the bar. Samantha waved at her. "We just got a table, are you coming?"

Saved by the bell, though Leah, relieved. Tearing her eyes away from Derek Hale, Leah smiled at Samantha. "I'll be right there, I just need to," she turned back and Derek was gone. Whirling around, she watched his retreating back.

It was already too late to chase him down and continue their enlightening and thoroughly unproductive argument. A small part of Leah wanted to, much to her dismay. Instead she shrugged her shoulders and strode over to Samantha. "Who was that?"

Leah glanced back over her shoulder again, only to find that Derek was gone. "Nobody," she muttered under her breath.

"Well 'Nobody' is a stone cold fox, where on earth did you meet him?" The sexually charged tone of Samantha's voice reminded Leah why she didn't ever bother to go out with people approximating her age. "Because, Leah, that man's jeans fit in _all_ the right places."

Snorting in poorly concealed laughter, Leah followed Samantha into the bar. "You're only saying that because you've never actually had to talk to him."

As Leah settled into her seat at the bar, she immersed herself in the mundane conversation of the other teachers. But she when she opened her bag to present their water with her ID, she started. Within the depths of her bag lay the dagger, carefully deposited next to her wallet and her cell phone. A small smirk tugged at her lips. Against her own will and better judgment, the overeager part of Leah actively questioned when she would have another opportunity to pick a fight with Derek Hale.

X X X

Silence clung to the cold air in the morgue. Reflected by the pale gray tile walls and the dimmed overhead lights, an aura of finality hung heavy over the three metal tables. Each equipped with perforated panels and attached to a drain that ran directly into the floor, the tables were designed with one purpose in mind: autopsies.

It came as no surprise to Doctor Mark Loew that when he walked into work at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital that he had not one, not two, but three patients waiting for him. Given the raging storm outside, he'd expected a traffic fatality or two, coupled with sobbing family members sent to ID the victims, and the grueling process of cleaning grit and road mess from the bodies in order to prepare them for transport to the funeral home.

What did surprise Doctor Loew was the condition in which his patients arrived. From the prep room, he could see through the windows. Three bodies lay perfectly still beneath pale green hospital sheets. Doctor Loew had been told to take special care with the bodies: a young married couple and the wife's brother. Each perfectly healthy from the inside out, dropped dead in the middle of a restaurant for no apparent cause. Undetectable by any machine or test, the attending ER doctors were desperate to get inside and know just exactly what killed this poor trio, much to the coroner's disgust. Car accident victims always presented obvious causes of death, nobody was ever over-eager to find out the truth there. In some ways, that made Dr. Loew's job easier, and he never felt as though he was violating his genuine respect for the dead. But he hated the way attending physicians jockeyed for autopsy results in unusual cases. These days, it seemed that the minute the doctor called time of death, he was snapping at Dr. Loew's heels for cause of death.

As he stared out at his three patients, the infuriating injustice swelled in his chest. He'd never met any of the three victims and he knew nothing about them, save what their sparse medical charts had to allow. All in their late twenties, non-smokers, social drinkers, no alarming family medical histories, all of these facts added up to a mystery. They'd left behind parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends. All Dr. Loew knew was that one minute each victim was alive, and the next they were seizing on the floor.

It was almost as if some malevolent soul orchestrated the entire thing to exact as much gut-wrenching pain as possible. Rubbing the back of his neck. Dr. Loew hesitated to move toward the first body, even to clean and prep. But, as much as Dr. Loew wanted to wait until the next morning to begin his work, he had his marching orders. He was already running the blood work, taken in the ER.

"Alright," he muttered and cracked his knuckles. Dr. Loew took several heavy steps towards the first victim, tying on a worn scrub cap over his head in the process. Upon closer inspection, even beneath the cover of the sheet, he could see the victim was male, probably six feet tall, and robust, the perfect silhouette of health. The contemplated this as he snapped his latex gloves on and then peeled back the portion of the sheet covering the victim's still face.

As a general rule, Dr. Loew tried not to focus on his patient's faces. Anything to maintain a semblance of distance always helped the process go easier. But this time, the coroner couldn't help but notice the victim's ashen skin and young features. Heavy, dark blonde eyebrows stretched over the man's shut eyes, lined with unusually thick eyelashes. Freckles dashed across his nose, giving his otherwise handsome features a boyish quality.

Heaving a sad sigh, Dr. Loew made a mental note to wake up his kids when he got home, just so he could give them an extra hug. He couldn't imagine what this young man's parents were going through, and he never wanted to know. Determined to not look at his face after he finished cleaning it, Dr. Loew reached for an alcohol wipe and made to clean the victim's face. Almost as soon as the cold wipe touched the man's skin, the lights flickered overhead.

Dr. Loew pulled back raising his eyes to the spotlight overhead. The lights flickered and he shook his head to clear his vision. For a moment, Dr. Loew swore he'd seen a crackle of electricity run over the light's surface. "I really need to switch to decaf," he muttered to himself.

As he began to set to work again, the lights flickered once more. Dr. Loew stepped away from the body, backing several steps away. His eyes never left the spotlight. All around him the air stilled, enveloping him in tense quiet. Fear prickled just beneath the surface of his skin, running over him in pulses. Beneath his breast bone, Dr. Loew's heart began to pound.

The lights buzzed, the sound reaching a painful frequency when in a flash of a blinding array, the spotlight exploded. Glass shards flew across the room and Dr. Loew threw his arms up to block his face. Sharp edges sliced across his skin. A bolt of electricity snapped from the light socket straight down, lancing into the body on the table.

On the autopsy table, a pair of blazing blue eyes snapped open and the victim's body went rigid. In a swift, panicked motion, the victim sat upright, a hoarse scream tearing from his previously lifeless lips. A strict hand clutched at his chest, and the victim gasped for air. Dr. Loew's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

As the same time, the victim slumped back down on the table, unconscious. Two figures swept into the morgue. "How are we going to get all three out without being noticed?"

"One at a time."

Two pale hands curved over the metal edge of the rolling table. Dr. Loew lay unconscious on the floor as the autopsy table rolled past, the wheels crunching over the shattered glass.

**A/N: Breaking and Entering! Leah's mystery deepens! Leah and Derek hate each other! Body snatching!**

**Next chapter features Stiles and Scott scheming, Liam's debut, Mama McCall, yet another Derek/Leah showdown, and Lydia's banshee powers! Chapter 5 is where the first real action begins!**

**I know last time I said that an update may be a few weeks away…I'm going to echo that sentiment again. After the Bar wraps up on Wednesday, my whole life is turning into wedding mode seeing as how I'm getting married in less than two weeks!**

**Leave some love! - Brose**


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